


When I Leave This World

by Lightpoint



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Badass Jedi and Padawan Team, Badass Leia, Badass Luke, Badass Rey, Carrie Fisher Tribute Fic, Dark, Dark Luke, Epic Platonic Twin Love, F/M, Force Ghost Leia, Force Ghosts, Gen, Jedi, Jedi Rey, Jedi Training, Kylo Ren Gets His Ass Kicked, Loss of Limbs, May the Force Be With You, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Life Partners, Platonic Love, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Pretty Disturbing in parts, RIP Carrie Fisher, Reywalker, Siblings, Skywalker Family Feels, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, They'll Be Ok, Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 01:18:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9100126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightpoint/pseuds/Lightpoint
Summary: Leia goes out in a blaze of glory like the BAMF she is. Luke senses it, and begins to Fall to the Dark Side. His padawan, Rey, tries to talk him down, without success. Leia, however, isn't going to stand for ANY of that shit...





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Carrie Fisher](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Carrie+Fisher).



> This is a Goodbye Fic for Carrie Fisher. The title is a reference to the song, [Last Kiss ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_sEtNrYlC4) by Pearl Jam, taken in an Epic Platonic Twin Love context, of course.

* 

Rey was elbow-deep in the _Falcon’s_ hyperdrive when her Master hit the deck. She cried out, her body jerking violently as raw _pain_ sliced through the Force. She only registered the sharp, corroded metal ripping into her skin when the hydrospanner slipped out of her fingers, shiny with blood. 

“Luke!” she cried, staggering backwards as the deck lurched sickeningly. The hyperdrive maintenance pit was sunk about five feet below the deck; nothing she couldn’t handle after a lifetime of crawling around the starship Graveyard on Jakku. Climbing down had been simple, barely a strain on her muscles, especially with the newly-earned support from the Force. But now she was leaking blood down her front and side, her arm and shoulder throbbing with pain. 

She tried to clench her fist, swallowing panic when _nothing happened._

It was bad.

“Luke! Please – I need --” 

Silence.

She _reached_ for him with the Force, and danced away, gasping at the slice of white-hot agony leaking through his shields. 

_What --_

Power slammed into her, shrugging off her tentative touch like a rancor flicking off a raindrop. 

“Luke!” she yelled, falling to her knees. A horrible _roar_ filled her mind, shoving her _off_ and _away_ with broken nails and blackened teeth.

Ice flooded her heart as she curled in on herself, quivering, throwing new, brittle shields between her mind and the howling Dark. 

Then the hyperdrive initiation light blazed to life.

“Luke!” she yelled. “WHAT THE KRIFF ARE YOU DOING?”

Technically the hyperdrive was functional. Technically. They’d gotten stranded in a junkyard on Ord Mantell while on an intel-gathering mission for General Organa, thanks to a freak combination of a dead power cell, a leaky compressor, and melted conductor lines that probably hadn’t been properly serviced since the Clone Wars. 

Which would have, on its own, been pretty damn bad…Even if the _Falcon_ hadn’t been pinned under several hundred feet of twisted ship parts. 

It had taken all of Rey’s scavenging skills (as well as considerable help from both Luke and the Force), to get it working again, and even then, Rey had flatly refused to attempt to start it without replacing the fuel core. 

She didn’t want her training to end in the middle of a sun, thank you very much.

Luke, naturally, felt the same, but had been pushing her hard to finish for the last week, the lines around his eyes deepening with each failure, each mistake. 

He’d grown short with her during practice sessions. He spent hours and hours combing the wreckage around them, glaring at it as if he could get the parts they needed by sheer force of will.

It had only gotten worse as the days ground by. She began settling into meditation faster than he did. Her Master gave up entirely two days before, after he’d knocked her out of the Force with a strange swell of twisted emotion that left her clinging to the deck, her mouth dry. The nightmares followed soon after, and dripped into her own dreams despite her efforts to block them out; strange pools of dark water that clung like oil, letting him twist away from her worried touch. 

Finally, the dreams had driven her out of her bunk and into the hyperdrive maintenance tunnel. 

And then, the scream, the falling, the _pain…_

…And her Master starting up the barely-functional hyperdrive while they were stuck in a landfill.

Something was very, _very_ wrong.

_Luke, please, talk to me!_

Rey ripped a strip off her tunic and wrapped it around her arm, covering up the bleeding line running from her elbow to her bicep, and pressed a mostly-clean rag to the weeping wound in her shoulder. Ignoring the way blood was rapidly soaking the cloth, she clutched the arm to her chest and crawled to the nest of pipes and conductor supports she’d used to climb down.

 _Six feet._ It might as well have been _six hundred._ There was no way she could climb out on her own.

But she wasn’t alone, not anymore. 

Rey sat cross-legged on the deck and shut her eyes. Somehow, the frantic urgency made it _easier_ to focus, to find that edge between pained awareness and total abnegation. The elusive space where she walked with the Force, and the Force with her. 

Perhaps it understood her need. 

Soon the _Falcon_ lay before her, twisted metal bones and all, sharp lines of intention darting around the corridors, centering in on her Master, who – 

Rey’s eyes shot open. 

_That’s not him. It can’t be!_

The Force whispered, sad, honest. 

_It is._

_No!_

Rey threw herself at the rotting mass of despair, ignored the wrath licking at the edges of her shields, searching for her Master’s battered, determined heart...

 

_…The acrid smell of burning metal filled her nostrils as the deck rocked underneath her feet, blaster fire roaring in her ears._

_“Fire party to deck 11B!” she shouted into the comm, kicking open the hidden compartment under the bridge nav console. “Gold Company, muster on deck 9 and protect the secondary bridge!” She dragged out a quad-barrel blaster rifle, ignoring the ache in her bones and the smoking body at her feet._

Plenty more where that came from, _she thought, eyeing the wall of Stormtroopers lining up – more cautiously this time – at the entrance to the bridge._

_A pang of sadness hit as she took in the devastation. The entire bridge crew was dead, officers and enlisted alike, slumped over consoles and sprawled on the deck like broken dolls. A squad of First Order troops had hijacked a troop transport and gotten on board with a stolen access code…Kylo Ren among them. They’d knocked out long-range communications, fried the shield generator, and cut the sublight engines to pieces, leaving her flagship blind and toothless in orbit around Naboo._

_The General smiled grimly, and thought of shuttle _Tyderion._ If anything, she could appreciate the irony. _

_Her son was approaching fast, his presence looming large in her mind. Fierce. Determined. And…The General’s smile widened._

_Conflicted._

Good.

_She crouched behind the console and slammed a fresh power pack into her rifle._

_The secondary bridge was already active. The breakaway section was coming alive. The backup systems were spinning up. Gold Company would be in position in under five minutes. They’d protect the bridge – and the data on the mainframe – long enough to collect the survivors. Then, they’d route everything to the breakaway section, and they’d all escape. The Resistance would live on._

_All they needed was five minutes._

Well then…

_General Leia Organa Solo leaped to her feet and fired. The door controls exploded into slag. The blast doors froze open…Open enough for only two troopers to enter, if they were practically on top of each other._

Like shooting fish in a barrel…

_Calm filled Leia’s being. She squeezed off shot after shot as they came at her through the bottleneck, counting down the seconds in her head._

238…239…240…One more minute, just one more minute…241…242…

_She leapt back as a light flashed in her peripheral vision, and troops poured in through a smoking hole in the bulkhead._

_“Hold your fire! Take her ali -- ”_

_The Stormtrooper at her back had already pulled the trigger._

_Kylo Ren threw him across the bridge._

_She smiled as her son dropped to his knees and pulled off his helmet. She reached up and cupped his cheek in her palm._

_The pain was slipping away._

Ben…

_MOTHER –_

__

 

Rey opened her eyes. She leapt to her feet, her heart pounding, heavy with dread.

She wasn’t alone.

_Luke! Luke, please! Don’t!_

Rey’s eyes filled with tears. She _reached_ into the Force, and jumped. 

 

*

 

She found him blocking the way into the cockpit. Her Master’s eyes flicked from the black grease stain on her forehead, to the scorch marks on her trousers and the strip of cloth missing from the midsection of her tunic, and, finally, to the blood dripping down her body. A shiver ran through her. He was assessing the situation, breaking her down into pieces, _cataloging_ her like she was a droid. The sum of her parts.

Rey opened her mouth, only to find her jaw frozen shut. 

“No need,” said Luke. Ice skittered down Rey’s spine. His voice was just as cool and steady as it was during training. The sound was the same, and yet…This was _not_ the voice that guided her through lightsaber katas, the one that talked her through the gnarled pain of a lifetime alone. The one that murmured support, and promised safety.

 _This_ voice? On Jakku she would have run like hell. 

And his _eyes…_

Something that was half gasp, half sob burst from her throat.

“What?” he snapped. His hand flashed out and grasped her jaw. Rey made herself look him full in the face.

_There is no fear, there is only…_

“What are you doing?” she blurted, as her world shrank down to the eldritch gleam in his bloodshot eyes. “We’re too close to the planet – the hyperdrive will – “

“We’ll be fine,” he said, and turned away. 

Rey followed him back into the cockpit and settled into the copilot’s seat, guarding her thoughts carefully. She’d seen the tremor in his shoulders, the flash of blue in his eyes.

Rey the Scavenger knew grief.

_I won’t leave you._

“Where are we going?” she asked aloud, quieter this time, as the _Falcon_ lurched into orbit.

There was a long silence.

“To get Leia,” said Luke. 

Rey swallowed. But she keyed up the navicomputer. 

“Where to?” 

Luke rattled off a string of coordinates without blinking. 

“Shouldn’t take long,” he said. “The hyperdrive will keep.”

Rey swallowed, her chest suddenly tight.

“Yes Master,” she whispered. “We’ll get there.”

*

The hyperdrive held together. Barely. It was belching noxious gas by the time they dropped back into realspace…and into a war zone.

Resistance and New Republic cruisers rained fire down on over a dozen First Order Destroyers, the _Finalizer II_ among them. Luke took over the controls and sent Rey up to the gun bay. Rey slotted her consciousness in with his as best as she could as they danced between laserfire and burning ships. Normally, the two of them were one _hell_ of a team, a well-oiled machine that chewed up Stormtroopers and Sith wannabes alike, and spit them out without ceremony. But she couldn’t _feel_ him, not like she usually could. Luke’s mind had gone hard and smooth, so cold and relentless that Rey could barely hold on...She could only match her actions with his, and hope that she got the timing right. 

Fortunately, their shaking rapport held until they reached the Resistance capitol ship; Rey blasting TIE after TIE to pieces, Luke burning through the void with maneuvers that Rey would have, yesterday, called impossible. They entered through an escape hatch on the foreword hull, and left the _Falcon_ anchored over it, ready for a quick escape.

Rey had to remind him about that…It was clear that her Master wasn’t thinking quite that far ahead. 

 

*

 

Five minutes later Rey was grateful that Luke had made her use _both_ hands when she trained with her lightsaber. In their rush to leave, Rey had ignored both the bleeding and (more worryingly) the slow loss of feeling in her right arm. She’d survived worse, after all. 

_A little blood never hurt anyone..._

…Until she tried to unhook her lightsaber just outside the escape hatch.

Luke turned around at her cry of pain. He made a small noise -- _worry?_ \-- when his eyes flicked to her arm and took in the blood-soaked cloth. Then he tossed her the _Falcon’s_ med kit. 

“Bind that. Stay if you want.”

She glared at him, cleaned up the wounds, and lashed her arm to her chest.

 _“You_ stay,” she muttered, shimmying down the escape ladder after him. 

It wasn’t like she’d never climbed one-handed before. And there was no way in hell she was letting him go in alone.

Not like this.

 

*

 

They made good time, despite Rey’s injury. The battle seemed to have come and gone, though the air still swam with smoke and the smell of burning flesh. They stepped over dozens of bodies, Stormtroopers and Resistance fighters alike. 

But no Leia.

Finally Luke’s head snapped to the side.

“There,” he said, jerking his head towards the end of the corridor. Rey reached out with the Force, and immediately recoiled in horror.

Darkness writhed on the other side of the bulkhead, open-mouthed and hungry. Rey threw up her shields. Whatever it was, it was _screaming._

“Shhh…Look again,” Luke murmured. Rey swallowed dryly, but did as he asked…and this time, she got a name, a face.

“It’s him,” she whispered. “But…” 

“But nothing,” Luke hissed. “He made his choice. And now he has to live with it.” Luke stepped out into the corridor, dark cloak shrouding his features, saber loose in his hand. He planted his feet apart, a strange smile playing across his face. “Let him come.” 

“Master…” Rey began. 

“Go back to the ship Rey.”

“No!” she said. “We’re doing this together.” 

Luke turned to face her. His eyes flickered gold.

“This is my fight, Rey.” She glared.

“Not anymore, it’s not. And we’re going to do this _right.”_

“Right?” Luke laughed. It was not a nice sound. “And what – “

“Uncle. Scavenger. How…nice to see you both.”

Kylo Ren stepped out into the corridor, sans helmet, alone. 

“Where’s the entourage, Ren?” Rey snapped, saber at the ready. 

A muscle twitched in Kylo’s cheek.

“Dead,” he said. An odd note in his voice made Rey pause. She took a step forward, squinting.

His eyes were red-rimmed and wet.

Behind her, the turbolift pinged. Rey flinched as flood of minds filled to the brim with bloodlust pressed against her senses.

“Master!”

Luke chuckled and shrugged off his cloak. 

“I should have killed you,” he said conversationally.

“Yes, you should have,” Kylo snarled. The hand wrapped around his lightsaber shook violently.

“You know what I’ve been asking myself for the past, oh, twenty or so years?” 

Luke ignited his saber.

“What?” Kylo snarled, his own blade flaring to life.

“How something as _weak_ as you could possibly have come from my sister.” 

Kylo rushed Luke with a roar, his presence a storm of rage and hate and…

_…Grief?_

Rey had just enough time to process _that_ before the turbolift opened, spilling a dozen Stormtroopers and three of the Knights of Ren into the corridor. She ignited her saber and reached out with her senses, casting about for loose shrapnel or armor – something she could throw, or use to cover her weak side. 

_There…_

She settled into a crouch, angled her left side towards the coming storm…And then the first wave hit, and the time to think was gone. 

At some point, six Stormtroopers and a Knight attempted to get in between Luke and their Master. The Knight went down in a cloud of burning blood. The Stormtroopers ended in a hail of cauterized limbs and scorched armor, dying too fast to scream as Luke took them apart. Rey fended off the remaining soldiers with her saber, and kept one Knight at bay with a slab of durasteel she’d ripped off the bulkhead with the Force. Somehow she stayed level, walked the adrenaline-fueled line between clarity and wrath.

The troopers and Knights were trying to kill her and Luke. She was defending herself. She had Luke’s back. That was all…

Things changed when the last Stormtrooper died. The third Knight (previously directing the flow of battle from the lift) moved in to double-team Luke with Kylo. Or so she thought. She’d just stabbed the second Knight through the heart, when the third – a hulking mass of armor and vibroblades -- lurched in towards her vulnerable side, catching her in her right shoulder, cutting halfway through the bone.

She screamed. She fell. She couldn’t help it as her arm _crunched_ underneath her, engulfing her in pain.

“REY!”

Something _squelched_ above her head, and suddenly her face was drenched in hot blood. She screamed again, and swiped at her eyes with her good arm.

_Not you, too…_

Luke stood over her, breathing hard, a hank of the third Knight’s hair hanging from his fist. The rest of the Knight was painting the walls, the deck, and most of Rey’s clothes. Kylo Ren was sprawled on the deck, holding himself as high as he could with his hands -- Luke had broken both of his legs. He stared up at his Uncle, face gone stark and pale, his thoughts whirling with despair. 

“She died screaming!” he yelled, his voice cracking. 

_Kill me,_ his thoughts whispered, almost too quiet to hear. _My fault. Kill me. Please. I --_

“Liar,” Luke hissed. His saber traced patterns in the air, millimeters from Kylo’s face. 

“Luke…” Rey croaked. “Luke, stop – “

“I spared you once,” Luke continued. “I won’t make that mistake again.” He raised his saber. 

“Do it,” Kylo whispered. He bowed his head.

Luke’s blade roared through the air – 

\--and stopped an inch from Kylo’s face.

_NO._

Luke stumbled back, bewildered. 

“…Leia?” he whispered.

Through the haze of pain, Rey saw a flicker of blue dancing in the air between Luke and Kylo. Warmth nestled next to her heart as a familiar presence slid close.

 _Luke,_ it whispered. 

“Leia…I…”

_Luke, listen to me. Don’t do this._

Luke stared as the blue light sparked brighter, settled into the faint outline of a face, a tiny figure. 

_He’s my son. And he kriffed up. But he’s still my son. Your nephew._

“And you’d be alive, if it wasn’t for him,” Luke bit out. “So would Han. So would – “

 _And he needs to be punished,_ Leia continued. _But not like this. He’s not worth it._

“Yes it is,” Luke said, his voice shaking. He raised his saber again.

Leia crossed her arms over her chest.

_I could stand here and give you reasons all damn day…This isn’t what I want for you. If you kill him you’ll be just like him. Don’t let the Emperor get the last laugh. Don’t repeat our Father’s mistakes. And they’d ALL be true. Mostly. But the fact of the matter is…_

Leia Organa stepped in and wrapped her arms around her brother.

_If you do this…I’ll never see you again._

Luke’s lightsaber clattered to the floor. He fell to his knees, dry, rough sobs rocking his thin form.

 

*

 

They brought Kylo back alive, despite his best efforts – he tried to rush Luke again, despite his lack of legs, and shot his mouth off at Rey until she came within inches of breaking his nose. The Resistance threw him in a cell next to the recently captured Captain Phasma while they decided what to do with him.

Rey lost her right arm. Between the accident on the _Falcon_ and the fight with Kylo and the Knights, it had been so badly damaged that it was easier to just replace it. Luke hovered around the med bay on _Home II_ while they fine-tuned the sensory interface on her new prosthetic, quietly checking every line of input/output data. He only retreated to the rehabilitation room after the Emdee-2 droid threatened to throw him out.

“I’ll be over here. If you need anything,” he said, looking carefully at the ground. Rey nodded, watching him closely. His eyes still glinted with fey gold, and his presence roiled with thunder and flame. And yet…He was still _Luke._

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “Luke – I –“ 

“Please don’t say it,” he said. He turned to face the viewport. “Try to get some sleep.”

 _I’m sorry…_

She was sleeping off the last of the pain medication, strange, tickling sensations shooting up and down her new, synthetic skin, when she felt a warm hand settle on her shoulder. 

_Take care of my brother, all right?_

Rey nodded. She swallowed a sob.

“Always.” 

She waited until the ripple in the Force had moved on. Then she swung her legs over the side of the bed, and walked silently to the viewport. Slowly, gently, Rey wrapped an arm around Luke’s waist. He stiffened, and then relaxed, accepting the comfort.

They stood together, watching the galaxy turn.

*********************************************************************************************************

  
Oh where, oh where can my baby be?  
The Lord took her away from me.  
She's gone to heaven, so I've got to be good,  
So I can see my baby when I leave this world.  


\--Last Kiss, Pearl Jam

*********************************************************************************************************

**Author's Note:**

> So I said, on Tumblr:
> 
> [That Awful Moment ](http://onelightpoint.tumblr.com/post/155081186739/that-awful-moment) when you want to write a Goodbye fic for Carrie Fisher that involves Leia going out in a blaze of glory like the BAMF that she is, Luke sensing it, going into intense mourning, nearly Falling to the Dark Side, and Padawan!Rey trying to talk him down and failing but then Force Ghost!Leia shows up and slaps him upside the head and basically says THIS ISN’T WHAT I WANT FOR YOU I LOVE YOU AND IF YOU TURN TO THE DARK SIDE THE FUCKERS WIN…
> 
> We'll miss you, Carrie Fisher.


End file.
